


The Ribbon on My Wrist

by serenadinsirens



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Excessive use of the word fuck, M/M, Red String of Fate, References to Religion, Soulmate AU, though they're pretty sarcastic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-29
Updated: 2014-05-29
Packaged: 2018-01-26 23:58:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1707317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serenadinsirens/pseuds/serenadinsirens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If soulmates are bullshit, then crushes have got to be the actual shit of bullshit. Like, crushes are the literal shisnos of the real world. And it is actually ruining my life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ribbon on My Wrist

**Author's Note:**

> did someone say “red string of fate soulmate au”? because i’m all for that. here’s my donation to the “write more raychael fics” fund and be prepared for a ton of dialogue and dumb banter. Enjoy!

They say that there’s a red thread tied to the end of your pinky that connects you to your soulmate. We’re told that it’s called the ‘red string of fate’, that it’s invisible almost all of the time, unless those slight moments where you subconsciously rub the base of your finger where it’s tied at (which, I mean, isn’t a very rare occurrence. When you’re told that there’s something on your hand that you can’t see, you spend quite a lot of time looking for it), it’ll glow a slight pink if your soulmate’s doing it, too. That you gain a small, almost unnoticeable insignia on the edge of your wrist when you meet, those fleeting minutes the only time you’ll ever be able to see the string.

Personally, I think it’s total bullshit.

Well, maybe not total bullshit because everything I’ve said before is the complete and 100% truth, but soulmates in general are just bullshit. Like, I’ve heard stories about people not ever really meeting their soulmates, or falling in love with people that aren’t their soulmates, and that shit I’m just not prepared for.

I also don’t really intend to prepare myself for it, either, because, I mean, that’s way too much work. So I guess that I maybe, kind of slightly, am trying a bit too hard to not give a shit one way or another, but that’s for my own good. If I fall in love, well fuck then I guess I’ll have to suck it up and deal with it, but at this point, I’m A-OK with not having to deal with anyone else’s “I love you”s.

“I love you, Michael.” Yeah, even that dumb sack of shit’s, too.

“Literally suck a dick, Ray,” I say to the grinning stream of piss on the other side of the computer, closing out one of tinychat’s desperate attempts to get me to sign up for their website. Fuck that. “You were an hour away from my house and you didn’t even stop by to say hello? I shouldn’t even be on this chat anyways.”

I heard a stupid chuckle come from the computer and put on the best frowny face I could. Gotta live up to the rage quit fame, right? “Is it because I’m Puerto Rican? Is this discrimination?”

“GOD damn it, Ray, it’s not oppression, you just blatantly avoided me! We’ve been talking nonstop online for like half a year and you literally saw an opportunity to come say hey and flipped it the fuckin’ bird!” I grabbed an X-Box controller as I spoke, doing the best that I possibly could to ignore the definitely not adorable Michael you stupid dumb idiot shit stain giggles once again.

“Rage Quit Jones, feeling insignificant the second someone’s not paying attention to him.” God damn him. Seriously. God, Jesus, whatever cruel deity watching over me, damn this small Puerto Rican man to an eternity in hell. I’m actually kind of pissed at this kid but he’s smiling and it’s too cute.

I think I want someone to stab me.

"It’s not even that you didn’t pay attention to me, dude," I grumbled out, starting up Call of Duty and paying less attention to the idiot talking to me from the computer.

"Yeah, yeah,  what-" I heard Ray pause briefly and vaguely wondered if his shitty internet dropped him from the chat. "Fuckin’ CoD? While I’m talking to you? Really? Right in the middle of our conversation?" Ray, somehow, had the nerve to sound irritated, but it had to be an exaggeration because I’m not sure that Ray experiences any kind of extreme emotions ever.

What a moron. “Oh shut the fuck up, Ray, you’re always fuckin’ playing CoD. You’re playing it right now, aren’t you?”

"Well, I mean, yeah." Fuck Ray. I mean it, just, literally fuck Ray.

Literally. Fuck Ray.

You feel me?

Fuck Ray that stupid, stupid as all fucking hell adorable Puerto Rican. The one that doesn’t know how to react to basically every goddamn thing to happen to him, so his default gesture is a shrug. The one who doesn’t know how to shut his mouth when it should be shut and open it when it should be open. This dumb motherfucker that has made the most shitty jokes in all of history just to be the only one to laugh at them.

If soulmates are bullshit, then I guess crushes are the shit of bullshit.

Crushes are the actual shisnos of the real world.

"Well, then, quit your bitching and send me an invite, Christ," I left it at that, waiting not exactly patiently for the notification to pop up on my screen, before selecting ‘accept’ and inadvertently joining the game.

I heard a content sort of hum and turned to look at Ray again. And fuck me backwards, he’s smiling right at me and I am genuinely considering smashing in my computer because of how dumb crushes are and also by how absolutely dumb I am in general.

“Well, there’s no need to keep the chat up anymore, bro,” Oh, Ray’s talking again. I don’t think I was actually listening. Something about chat and such. “I’m gonna log off, we can talk over XBox live,” he concluded, and I closed down the webcam since there was pretty much no need to keep it up anymore. “Hey, try not to miss my face too much, right, I know how you get separation anxiety.”

He deserved me closing the window out abruptly without a good bye, though the fucker was no doubt laughing to himself as well.

I shut my laptop and turned to face the loading screen on my TV, feeling a heartbeat too loud in my eardrums and I guess now I’m cursing basically everything in existence, starting with a shockingly caucasian hispanic man who lives in New York, and ending with God’s disgusting decision to give humans emotions.

“Don’t worry, Michael, I’m back, don’t start crying yet,” I heard the voice come from over my headset and man, I think I’m actually smiling to myself a bit and wow I’m so stupid about all of this, aren’t I?

“Shut the fuck up, Ray,” I chide, but for some reason it’s much softer this time- though, that reason might be the fact that I am a big fucking softie, and as Ray chuckles again, my soul takes out its 9 mm to shoot down the butterflies in my stomach as I close my eyes and gently rub the base of my pinky.

This time, I’m actually kind of disappointed that it didn’t glow pink.

—-

_"Fuckin’! **Michael!** Watch the fucking door!”_

Nah. “Dude, apparently Dylon met his soulmate on his trip to California the other day.” I flipped through the chat messages, raising my eyebrow as the canadian went further into detail about his  _exciting_ experience (he spilled coffee all over the front of her dress, that dumb fuckin’ tiny child).

_"Are you on fuckin’ AIM instead of focusing on the mission?!"_

Yep. “How has Dylon met his soulmate already, though; he’s, like,  _twelve_ ,” yeah, I’m actually kind of whining a bit. I mean, soulmates  are still  ~~ _complete and utter bullshit don’t let anyone tell you otherwise because they are lying_~~ dumb as hell, but I  _might_ be a little jealous of that small, small boy.

 _"He’s sixteen, I don’t give a fuck, now pay attention or I’ll,I’ll,"_ Even this moron doesn’t even know what he’ll do. Chances are, he won’t do anything. That would mean getting up and leaving his couch,  _"I’ll shit on your pizza when you visit me this Saturday."_

He’ll probably have forgotten we were even playing together by that point, but now I’m remembering that we’re  _finally_ meeting this weekend and that has me smiling enough to pick up the controller and actually play the game. 

"Ray, please," I chide, grinning to myself as I take down four enemies. "Don’t be vulgar."

 _"Ooooh, fuck off,"_ at this point, I don’t know if he’s talking to me or the game, but I guess it doesn’t really matter if he doesn’t elaborate on it. We tend to another few brief moments of silence, and I actually don’t mind it at all; Ray and I have just been able to fall into that sort of comfortable silence, where you feel good and  _not_ like someone should be talking.

 _"So, like, soulmates, huh?"_ he was talking again and that snapped me out of the gaming rhythm that I’d fallen into to listen to him. And wow, what a touching, incredibly eloquent way with words Ray had when it came to starting conversations.

"What about them?" I say, taking a swig from my beer bottle and raising an eyebrow. Sure, he can’t see me right now, but what can I say? I’m an expressive guy.

 _"I don’t know! You’re the one that brought it up!"_ he shot back and I chuckled at the way the pitch in his voice raised as enemies took him down in the game, shouting instructions at me to save him or some stupid shit. But of course I won’t, the fucker has to lose at least  _once_ , right? _”Michael.”_ even though he was obviously irritated, I couldn’t help but grin like the moron I am every time he says my name.

 _Yes,_ I’m still dealing with those piece of shit emotions.

"Yeah, Dylon met his soulmate or whatever," of course I’m ignoring leaving him for dead, Ray rarely gets frustrated and it’s hilarious when he actually does. On days like today, I’ll do what I can to provoke him  ~~(because it’s cute when his voice rises with annoyance).~~  “Is that weird for you to think about, too? I mean, this, like,  _fetus_  meets the person who was destined to be by your side for all eternity when some people die without ever meeting their soulmate.”

 _"Damn, gotta make it all dark on me,"_ Ray joked, and he’s probably right about that, I  _did_ happen to get really deep with him on that.  _"I mean, sometimes my pinky will just start, like, randomly glowing and I’m like, ‘cool, you’re still alive’."_

That was not entirely unrelatable with me, either. “Yeah,” I say because I don’t know what else to say, and it’s at this point where I pull out my ‘weird story archive’ to make me seem a lot cooler than I actually am, “dude, did you hear about the baby that was born with a red string of fate attached to its mother?”

 _"Oh, shit, that’s so…"_ Ray trailed off for a second, and I’m actually a bit nervous to hear what he was going to conclude with such a statement.  _"So, what, is she gonna fuck the baby?"_

God damn it. “How is it possible for you to make it weirder than it already was?  _No,_ Ray, I don’t think she’s gonna fuck the baby,” yeah, but I’m laughing still because I am just a giggly piece of shit when it came to Ray Narvaez, Jr. “But they’re still predestined lovers or some shit.”

 _"Fuck, dude,"_ was all Ray said and that was probably the statement that I most agreed with on the subject, regardless of whether I kind of always agreed with what Ray said or not-  _which,_ might I add, is not a smart way to go about your life because Ray says a lot of really unintelligent things.  _"You know what, I’d probably just kill myself, like, right then and there."_

"Yeah, same, I would  _not_  let myself live through that,” that would actually probably be the most traumatic thing to ever happen; that child will probably always be known as a literal ‘motherfucker’. “Aaaaah,  _shit_ on my  _fucking_ face.” Ah, yes, the joy of failing the same mission for the fourth time in a row.

I love gaming so much.

Also, I want it to be known that I actually, completely and 100% hate Ray because he is currently laughing at me.  _"How could you miss that?!"_  Shut up.  _"They were like three fuckin’ feet in front of you in point blank range, are you kidding me?!"_ Literally suck my dick, you 300,000 gs bag of cunts (but really, suck my dick). 

"Ray, if you keep laughing at me, I’m not going to visit you. I’m gonna go to New York City and just completely ignore you out of spite,"  _Yes,_ I was still bitter about that even a month later.

 _"No! Then I have no one to go to Dave & Buster’s with!" _Ray actually sounded genuinely worried and from the way I was smiling, I guess somewhere along the line my brain decided to drop the jest and just communicate with Ray like a normal human being.

"Dave & Buster’s, huh? You seem like you’ve got everything all planned out already," I trusted him with that much, Ray was pretty good at planning things out when he, you know,  _actually made plans_.

_"Fuck yeah, we can fuckin’ play some Mario Kart!"_

"Alright, just so long as you don’t pick Waluigi," because this dumb asshole  _always_ has to play easily the worst Mario character that Nintendo has ever created. The skinny douche was even worse than Birdo, for Christ’s sake.

But  _no_ , Ray was so vehemently against that idea.  _"What?! No way, dude, Waluigi is the king!"_ Wrong. Incorrect. Nada.

Ray was a moron. “Are you kidding me, Ray? Waluigi is  _easily_  the worst character in the history of any video game, basically ever,” and goddamn, Ray was so adamant about this character I could hear him protesting over my voice. “ _No_ , Ray, fuck you, there is absolutely no worse character than Waluigi, I swear to  _God_.”

_"What about, fuckin’, Luigi? His shitty counterpart?"_

I smiled a bit at that. “I would typically agree with you on that, but that Luigi’s Mansion game on the GameCube was my shit, bro.” 

Ray did not say anything to that at first, before chuckling almost sheepishly and sending my heart into my throat.  _"Yeah, I guess you’re right about that much,"_ he admitted and it had me smiling so hard that I actually was fearing that my lips would fall off of my face.

"Of course I am." God, I can’t stop thinking about this Saturday and finally meeting Ray after talking to each other over tinychat and XBox live for months on end. I can’t stop thinking about the way his voice would sound in person and his smile would look and now, finally, being able to actually punch him when he acts like a dumb motherfucker instead of just threatening it.

On top of everything, I think I actually just like the thought of finally being near him the most. That was an idea that I couldn’t get out of my head, it sent bouts of excitement to my stomach in the form of butterflies.

No matter how many times I closed my eyes and went to sleep, it was still the same amount of hours until Saturday, and the fact that I couldn’t just fall asleep and wake up in New York made me almost as ill as the sheer idea of meeting my best friend made me.

I don’t know how much longer I can wait.

—-

This bus seat is probably the most uncomfortable thing I have ever sat my ass upon.

And I mean, that’s saying a lot because the list of things that I have sat my ass upon is almost perpetual, but I’m actually kind of convinced that I’m sitting on a bunch of rusty nails underneath unwashed pigskin. It’s kind of gross, and I think I remember why I hate public transportation so much.

 Of course, I’d also been on this bus for the past hour, so that could probably do it, too.

I groaned, sitting up and cracking my back, thanking the lord for the creation of comic books, because that was the only form of entertainment I had on this ride (no, I don’t have a fucking smartphone). I dogeared the page I was on and pulled out my backpack to go through a quick check that everything I came with was still with me.

Video camera for the inevitable vlog? Check.

T-Shirt I bought to give to Ray, because it just felt fitting? Check there, too.

Well, that was really all that was there because I am a simple man and only bring with me the necessities. Like comic books. Because, as pointed out earlier, comic books are a grace sent to us by God, obviously.

I checked the time on my phone and sighed to myself as I realized that it was still only around 9:00 in the morning and it was actually all I could do to avoid being up at this time. I should be arriving in the station soon, I would assume, and then, it was time to fulfill my life’s goal.

Well, maybe not life’s goal. But I was going to meet Ray, regardless of what aspect of life that related to.

"Uh, excuse me, sir?" For some reason, I got the sinking suspicion that that person was talking to me and looked up to meet a woman, probably in her early thirties, whose mouth was twitching like she was trying to disguise an emotion and was failing terribly.

I didn’t say anything to her, only made an obscure kind of gesture that looked something like a more polite way to say “what the hell do you want”, because that was how I rolled with people.

"Look, I know it’s none of my business, but," ah, yes, my favorite way to start a sentence, mainly because it typically is none of your business, bitch. "I couldn’t help but notice that for the past, about 10 minutes, your fingers been, well…"

Did I lose my fucking finger and not notice it? Oh my God, I probably lost my finger and didn’t notice it. I literally can not believe my life has come to this I swear to God, that’s all I’m thinking as I hold up both hands to desperately try and find some way to solve my predicament…

…only to come to the conclusion that today is probably the worst day of my life.

I think I said something out loud but I’m not sure the exact words even though I’m pretty sure it was some sort of variation of “Oh you have got to be motherfucking kidding me”. I mean, I’m pretty sure that I have never felt so genuinely terrified looking at my hands before in my entire life, and I’m almost completely  _positive_ that I never before would rather have looked up and noticed that I was missing a finger rather than see what I am currently seeing at this very second.

God, damn you. I’m speaking directly to you, whatever you are and wherever you are. I can’t believe that you would let this happen to me on  _today_ , of all days. The one fucking thing that I’ve been trying to avoid for the past 23 years of my life.

Right now, before my eyes, I see a red string, tied to my pinky, leading out the door to the subway.

Now, from all of the shitty tales I’ve heard, you only really see the string when you’re close to the first meeting of your soulmate and that thought alone was terrifying enough to render me absolutely speechless. I’m also pretty sure I’m shaking because the hands in front of me are trembling and I don’t think I’m really breathing, anyways.

Yeah, I’m definitely not breathing.

I guess that was the cue to start breathing again, though it was more of a gasp for oxygen. I also lost track of the amount of time that I’ve been sitting there, staring at the my hands held right in front of my face, but apparently it was long enough to get the lady to finally leave me alone.

My soulmate was in New York City. That was the conclusion that I came to and, I mean, I just could  _not_ get past that idea; that the person I was destined to spend my life with from the day I was born was finally in the same city as me. This meant no more rubbing the base of my pinky in hopes that I would see a glow, this meant no more staying up late and guessing who it might end up being.

They are  _right here with me._

The bus comes to a stop, and I don’t know if I’m ready to get off yet.

The doors open and the red string leads right out of them and fucking  _Christ_ , I can’t believe that someone is staring at their hands right now, wondering if they were finally going to meet me. Holy  _shit_ , this is so weird.

I guess my body didn’t wait for my brain to tell it to get up and just started working on its own because I’m now actually walking with my own two feet out the doors to the subway platform, and not taking my eyes off my hands for one second, in some sort of trance, or maybe a fear that the string would disappear.

The platform is crowded. Like, really crowded. The kind of crowded where I’m not really sure that I can actually trace the string on my pinky to. There’s a swarm of people all around me, boarding and unboarding and waiting there to meet someone, and among them is someone staring at their hands like I am, waiting to meet me.

I start to take careful steps around the string, moving with it to the position of- well, I guess it’s safe to say my other  _half_ , and I think the people around me take notice of my predicament with their smiles and sidestepping to let me pass.

I’m not sure if my heart is in my chest anymore. I feel it everywhere; in my eardrums, at the tips of my fingers, and in my tongue, throbbing against the roof of my mouth, and that suspense is enough to get me to stop for a second and think about the situation, where I am.

It makes me think about Ray. 

And fucking Christ on a sandwich, I’d really forgotten about Ray for a while there, the plans we’d made to finally meet and the hours of anticipation I’d waited through to finally get to this point, but all of that disappeared the second that I looked down at my hand and saw a red string pointing away from him.

Damn it. I’m taking out my phone- my dumb, shitty Blackberry because I’m to proud to get anything else, and going to Ray’s contact to try and text him and say  _'hey, just so you know, I found the person that I'm supposed to spend the rest of my life with so. you know. you're going to have to wait for me._ _  
_

But wait a second. Wait one, single, fleeting second as I try and sort my life out here. I’m pretty sure I’m not moving and just staring at my phone in the middle of the subway, but for some reason, there’s this part of me that’s figuring it all out. I mean, I have to have figured it all out, right? The bone shaking anticipation up to this day, the all- too convenient place that I would happen to meet my soulmate. I’m definitely not Sherlock Holmes, or really have any vague sort of intelligence in me at all, and maybe I was just too hopeful, but…

"Hey, baby, is that a red string of fate on your pinky, or are you just happy to see me?"

That motherfucker.

That mother _fucker._

I closed my phone and even closed my eyes for a second there, because God, yes, we’ve been talking a lot for these past couple of weeks, but you better not be fucking with me right now or I just might end up converting to atheism out of spite. The voice actually sent shivers up my spine as I looked up and had to really take in the sight in front of me. Like, completely absorb that in case I was dreaming.

Ray Narvaez, Jr, you’re a big sack of shit. “You’ve gotta be fuckin’ kidding me right now,” that’s all I could say, really, to the sight of Ray looking at me sort of sheepishly, holding his pinky up just a tiny bit in front of my hand, showing a bright red string connecting the two fingers together. “Did you fuckin’ plan this?” 

Ray looked startled at that proposition and, to be fair, I was pretty startled myself. “ _How_  could I have planned this?! I was waiting for you at the station when this thing just appeared, man, I’m just going with the flow!”

This was so  _weird_. “‘Going with the-‘” I stopped midway through my sentence to watch the string attached to the both of us start to kind of dissolve. A small shimmer grew up both opposite ends of the string towards the both of our fingers and I think I actually gasped when it ended, pulling my hand back out of instinct. Of course, my fingertips ended up briefly glowing, anyways, before fading back to their natural pasty color. “Are you fuckin’ serious?”

Ray was studying his hand curiously as I was, eyes squinted in concentration. “Oh, dude, we’ve got that weird, uh, bow or whatever now. The tiny little red thing on the corner of our wrists. That’s pretty weird. Like a cutie mark.”

"Oh, shut up, Ray," of course he had to bring My Little Pony into it, but studying the small insignia, the unfamiliarity in my gut  _finally_  started to fade and it did my brain a great deal of good.

Okay. So Ray and I are soulmates. I can deal with that. I can really deal with that.

And Ray was laughing and I was reminded of the real reason why I was so excited to come to New York City, because his laugh was so melodious in person, even if it only came out in little bursts, I was so sure that I could fall asleep listening to his laugh.

"So, uh, what’s the proper pick up line for this situation?" Ray questioned and it was all I could do to smile my heart away listening to him speak. I mean, for as much as I talked about soulmates being bullshit and such, I’m pretty sure that right now, this is what cloud nine feels like.

It feels fucking incredible, for those of you wondering.

"I think you already used it, dude," I’m referencing the stupid use of that ‘hey baby’ line he used when we first started talking today. Regardless of what has happened, I still stand strong by the concept that that was the stupidest thing to say, ever.

"Oh. Did it work?"

"Hell yeah," I mean, I never said that the stupidity didn’t work on me, now did I?

Ray smiled and I smiled right back at him because I’m pretty sure neither of us could hold it back at this point. “So,” he said, intonation in his voice foreshadowing a new topic.”Dave & Buster’s then, soulmate?”

I grinned, grabbing his shoulder and pushing him out of the middle of the subway. “Only if you don’t pick Waluigi; TOTALLY a turn off, I gotta say.” And it felt right, so right walking side by side onto the streets of New York City, a fresh feeling in my head that I could definitely get used to.

"Oh, I’ll be sure to pick Peach then, dude; have you seen  _those_  tits?” 

"At what point during today’s sequence of events did you come to the conclusion that I wanted to see  _tits_?” I’m pretty sure that that was the best way I could subtly sort of scream ‘I’M GAY FOR YOU, DUDE’, and it worked well because Ray laughed that wonderful, lifesaving laugh of his.

"Yeah, you right," he decided, and I gave a light shove at his shoulders towards the entrance of Dave & Buster’s, seeing his hand and taking hold of it, cherishing the touch of our skin together, as dumb as that sounds.

Our pinkies brushed together and I knew that the smile I wore was permanent.


End file.
